Louie Gohmert Go Nuts About Benghazi During Abortion Hearings (VIDEO)

The Republican Party loves its shibboleths — random buzzwords and dog-whistles that fluff up their mostly white male voters to half-mast status. You know the words: teleprompters, czars, birth certificate, Chicago gangster and, of course, Benghazi to name a few. They apparently get bonus crazy points if they hamfistedly connect two or more of the words, especially “Benghazi” and “Planned Parenthood.” Mike Huckabee was the first to conflate these two otherwise disparate words when he tweeted that Planned Parenthood is just like Benghazi.

Invoking Benghazi is wingnut Viagra. Sadly, the word has lost all meaning. It’s neither a town in Libya nor the location of a deadly attack on the U.S. consulate — it’s just an exclamation that Republicans blurt to express outrage. For example: “BENGHAZI! I just stubbed my toe!” Or, “Idiot driver just cut me off in traffic! BENGHAZI ON HIM!”

So, leave it to asparagus-evangelist, talking buttcheek and Texas Republican Louie Gohmert to totally one-up Huckabee during the House Judiciary Committee’s Planned Parenthood inquisition. Gohmert was questioning former Planned Parenthood clinic manager Susan Thayer who, by the way, was testifying against her former employer, when — seemingly out of nowhere — Gohmert abruptly switched gears and began to freak out about Benghazi.

“You had people meeting here in America, in Washington, while people were dying! While Ty Woods was gathering David Ubben and Glen Doherty and going to the rooftop to man guns to try to protect the people in those facilities. Yes, Benghazi was about politics! And I would love to know what the president was doing that night. … Apparently there was plenty of rest before he went to the fundraiser in Las Vegas the next day. Yes, my colleague is right: Benghazi was about politics! And we need to get to the bottom of why those four people were killed, while nobody in Washington that knew what was going on lifted a finger!”

What does all this have to do with Planned Parenthood, the subject of the hearings? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But clearly Gohmert was running behind on his daily quota of “BENGHAZI!” blurting and had to make up time somehow. Hence, the whiplash-inducing segue from reproductive services to a terrorist attack on a diplomatic compound in 2012.